HarknessProject Title: Prevention or Treatment in Adolescent Mental Health? A Comparison of U.S. and Australian Strategies and Approaches

Mentors: Charles Irwin, Jr., M.D., and Claire Brindis, Dr.P.H.

Placement: University of California, San Francisco

Biography at time of Harkness Fellowship: Jane Burns, a 2004–05 Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy, is a senior manager at Australia’s national depression initiative, beyondblue, where she has been instrumental in establishing their nationally and internationally recognized youth agenda. She is a visiting fellow at the Centre for Mental Health Research, Australian National University and an honorary research fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, University of Melbourne. Burns holds an ongoing consultancy with Athlete Development Australia as their chief investigator for research exploring the impact of using athletes, musicians and celebrities as role models. She is director and adolescent health advisor to the BounceBack Foundation: Role Models for Youth and a member of the Advisory Committee for the Inspire Foundation. She has a doctorate in public health with training in psychology, psychiatric epidemiology and evidence-based medicine. Her previous appointment as an National Health and Medical Research Council Fellow at the Centre for Adolescent Health (Royal Children's Hospital) covered prevention research in youth suicide, depression, and drug and alcohol use.

Project: Jane Burn’s project explored policy options and strategies to reduce adolescent mental health problems. She first conducted a literature review, and then used two large datasets (National Survey of Drug Use and Health; Adolescent Health Survey) to examine the prevalence, trajectory, explanatory factors, and associated utilization of adolescent mental health problems. Finally, she conducted interviews with researchers on different approaches to prevention and treatment.

Career Activity Since Fellowship

Chair, STREAT Ltd., 2017

CEO, Innowell Pty Ltd., 2017

Director, Cooperative Research Centres Association, 2012

Chief Executive Officer, Young and Well Co-operative Research Centre, 2011

Director, International Partnerships in Research, Practice, and Policy, 2006

Burns, J., Boucher, S., Glover, S., Graetz, B., Kay, D., Patton, G., Sawyer, M., Spence, S. “Preventing depression in young people. What does the evidence tell us and how can we use it to inform school based mental health initiatives?” Advances in School Mental Health Promotion. 2008.

Burns J., Dudley M., Patton G. and Hazell P., “Clinical management of deliberate self-harm in young people: the need for evidence-based treatments,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatr. 2005.

Mission

The mission of The Commonwealth Fund is to promote a high-performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.